'Double BOEM's resources': US industry body chief calls for offshore wind step-up

American Clean Power Association CEO Heather Zichal tells Congress environmental reviews of projects construction and operation plans must jump ten-fold

American Clean Power Association chief Heather ZichalFoto: ACPA

Richard Kessler

American Clean Power Association (ACPA) CEO Heather Zichal has called on US Congress to earmark significantly greater funding for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and other cooperating federal agencies to speed environmental reviews for major offshore wind projects necessary to meet the new goal of having 30GW of plant turning by 2030.

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“BOEM’s Office of Renewable Energy Programs (OREP) needs at least double the resources to increase its environmental reviews of offshore wind project construction and operation plans [COPs] by ten-fold,” Zichal, who took up the top job at ACPA in December, said in written testimony at a House of Representatives subcommittee hearing.

Zichal told lawmakers that the offshore wind industry is on the verge of becoming a substantial source of clean energy close to the largest population centres on the US east and west coasts, adding that achieving the national target would support a minimum $25bn in annual economic output and 83,000 jobs.

“In order to meet state and federal climate and economic goals, the offshore wind industry needs a fully-resourced BOEM, transmission planning, long-term permitting certainty, and more lease areas,” she said.

The US has only seven turbines piled-in off its shores so far and the 800MW Vineyard Wind 1, the country’s flagship large-scale offshore wind project, is only now undergoing the final permitting steps after 38-months of slow-rolling and inconsistent federal environmental reviews.

There are 13 other COPs clogging BOEM’s permitting pipeline, and BOEM under new director Amanda Lefton has promised to initiate reviews for up to ten additional projects this year.

While the bureau is the lead federal regulatory agency for the industry on the outer continental shelf (OCS), cooperating agencies such as the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), also need increased resources to keep up with sector goals, Zichal told the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources.

“Congress must increase appropriations for these agencies to better understand impacts, deliver critical scientific data, and ensure that commercial and recrecreational fisheries management is adequately supported,” she said.

Specifically, NOAA’s Fisheries division needs additional resources to update and calibrate core fisheries and protected resource surveys, representing collectively 314 years of total survey effort, to offshore renewable energy development.

“The offshore wind industry seeks to co-exist with all ocean users, and increased resources are needed at agencies such as NOAA and FWS to keep up with dramatically increased workloads,” she said.

Elsewhere, ACPA supported a bill introduced in the House by majority Democrats that would remove an upcoming ten-year moratorium on new energy leasing on the federal OCS along Florida, Georgia, and North and South Carolina.

Former US President Donald Trump last September imposed the moratorium using an executive order. While the move targeted oil & gas drilling after 1 July 2022, BOEM later said it applied to offshore wind.

While there is political support in both Carolinas for at least some offshore wind development, that is not the case thus far in Florida and Georgia. Trump’s executive order would not impact existing energy leases.

For offshore wind, the only lease is held by Avangrid Renewables for a 495km² (112,405 acre) area 43km (27 miles) facing the North Carolina coast. The Iberdrola-controlled company plans a 2.4GW project called Kitty Hawk that it wants to develop in three 800MW stages.

The US’ National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates there is a 2TW offshore wind resource – equal to twice the nation’s current electricity use – flowing over the country’s Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

International developer-led industry group the Ocean Renewable Energy Action Coalition expects sea-based wind projects to make up 85% of a 1.4TW global build out of renewable ocean energy plant by 2050.